Poet Claudia Rankine, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will lead a talk on the craft of poetry at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20.
In addition, Rankine will read from her work at 8 p.m. Oct. 29.
Both events — presented as part of The Writing Program’s fall Reading Series — are free and open to the public and take place in Duncker Hall, Room 201, Hurst Lounge. A reception and book signing immediately will follow each.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1963, Rankine is the author of four poetry collections, including “Nothing in Nature is Private,” “The End of the Alphabet,” “PLOT” and the experimental “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric,” which combines poetry, essays, images and travelogue.
Writing of the latter, poet Robert Creeley said, “Claudia Rankine here manages an extraordinary melding of means to effect the most articulate and moving testament to the bleak times we live in I’ve yet seen. It’s master work in every sense, and altogether her own.”
Rankine’s most recent project is a play, “The Provenance of Beauty, A South Bronx Travelogue,” being produced by the Foundry Theatre in New York. Part of the Foundry’s Distinguished New Play Development Project, the piece consists of a 90-minute bus tour through the South Bronx during which three narrators — two recorded and one live — provide a rolling commentary on the often poverty-ridden borough.
Rankine’s poems have been included in several anthologies, including “Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present,” “Best American Poetry 2001” and “The Garden Thrives: Twentieth Century African-American Poetry.”
In addition, Rankine is co-editor of “American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language” (with Juliana Spahr) and “American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics” (with Lisa Sewell).
Rankine holds the Henry G. Lee ’37 Professorship of English at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. She previously taught at Barnard College, Iowa Writer’s Workshop and the University of Houston.
Her many honors include fellowships from the Academy of American Poetry, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lannan Foundation as well as the Cleveland State Poetry Prize for “Nothing in Nature is Private.”
For more information, call 935-7130 or e-mail David Schuman at dschuman@wustl.edu.